


Ambiguous Loss

by writermegs17



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-12-01 00:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11474553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writermegs17/pseuds/writermegs17
Summary: 2nd person account of ways Iris grieves Barry at various points during his time in the Speedforce.





	Ambiguous Loss

**Author's Note:**

> I loved writing from a new POV and exploring angst more deeply. I hope this shows in my words. Be kind, and enjoy! <3

It’s been an hour and you feel him in the way your dad hugs you in an unbelievably tight embrace, and you know he feels Barry too because he just said what could be an eternal goodbye to the boy he’s learned to love as a son for the past 17 years. It brings you a sliver of comfort know you’re not the only one grieving, even if only a minute later you’re screaming at Joe because you lost the person that you’ve spent the last 17 years taking care of and believing in when nobody else did. Because you knew him, oh god, it hurts you to feel how much you knew him.

 

It’s been two hours and you feel him in the empty space that is his side of the bed.  You can practically hear his voice whispering to you how much he loves you and how most nights the last thing he said before falling asleep was that he doesn’t want to wait another second to be your husband. “Oh Bear, I should’ve listened to those words I always just thought were sweet, because who knows if I’ll ever to be Iris West-Allen now.” You sob quietly to yourself, feeling more alone with every passing second. Longing for something that resembles his touch in even the slightest of ways, you slip the flannel that he wore yesterday over your head, imagining that the too long sleeves are arms wrapped around your waist as he kisses you goodbye and you linger on the soft and calming scent of his cologne while he whispers, “I love you, Iris, see you soon." And _god,_ you wish those words were real.

 

It’s been a week and you see him in the messy scribbles of a drawing for an extremely complicated quantum physics theory that he was trying to explain to you one of your lazy Saturday nights together, those nights that are few and far between even before he went in the Speedforce.  You smiled when you found it lying almost Hidden on the desk because you could just see the way way his dimple created a smile thousands of miles wide and the way his mossy green eyes would light up like tiny, ever glimmering stars, every time he talked about science just for fun. The mirage of him is so real and vivid that it makes you wish you hadn’t spent so much of your life accompanying his detailed scientific explanations with childish giggles, because you know now that you love him so much that anything he could say what sound like the most interesting thing in the world.

 

It’s been a month and you feel him in the loneliness of getting back into your daily routine. You feel him in the absence of that dark roast coffee that he always insisted on making you. You switch it out for his favorite blonde blend, because it’s silly, but one of the things you miss the most is watching his cheeks flush when tell him that he drinks his coffee like a 20-year-old girl. At work, his absence presents itself in the form of no weekly new fresh bouquets of flowers. Barry would always smile bashfully at you when you asked him why he felt like he had to buy you flowers consistently, when you have never been the kind of girl who needs flowers anyway, and then he would say. “Because, you’re beautiful, and flowers are the only thing I’ve ever seen that can even try to compete with your beauty.” And the reminder of his beautifully genuine romantics, that you know he always reserved for you, warms your heart and breaks it into a million fragile pieces all at the same time

 

It’s been three months and you see your loneliness in the sad wondering smiles that your distant friends and acquaintances give you when you tell them that you both decided to postpone the wedding so that it doesn’t feel so rushed, you want to tell them that there isn’t a wedding so they’ll stop pitying you, but you can’t bear to say those words out loud. You’ve picked out a wedding dress, and it  hangs in the very back spot of your closet because you’re still hanging on to that last glimmer of hope.

 

 It’s been six months and you feel it in the painful way that everyone expects to start filling in his roles on the team. You want to more than anything, because the feeling that it’s your duty to honor him starts to become ever present the second the never-ending construction on Star Labs is finally complete. But you can’t because nobody could ever be the kind of hero that Berry is, not even the woman that his world orbits for.

 

 It’s been six months fourteen days, and twelve overwhelmingly hopeful hours and you see him in the shadow running towards you, and when he finally takes you into his arms and kisses you deeply on the lips, a kiss to create an entire new world, that’s when you know you don’t need to imagine him anymore because he’s finally _real._ After all this time, Barry Allen has finally found a way to run home to you.


End file.
